American politics

Barack Obama's war

TONIGHT Barack Obama heads to West Point, New York, where he'll unveil his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan in front of a crowd of army cadets. Most of the details are already known: the president will quickly send an additional 30,000 troops to the war zone; he hopes to begin drawing down the American presence starting in July 2011, as Afghan forces take charge; and the new strategy will aim to prevent al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan or Pakistan. Parts of the strategy should placate the anti-war left, while other parts will please the hawkish right, and yet, as a whole, it may not satisfy people on either side. With the country growing increasingly sceptical of the Afghan operation, Mr Obama has his work cut out for him.

8:42: Well, there basically wasn't anything in there about any of the fascinating strategic issues that have been raised over the past couple of months. We have no idea what the split in emphasis is on population security v counterterrorism, no idea if or when American forces will pursue Taliban/AQ inside Pakistani territory, no idea whether the "tribal" strategy is a reality. Guess we'll have to keep following developments on the ground and the articles at the think tanks to see how things are headed. This is less of a clear signal than George Bush provided, actually, in December 2005 when he used the language "clear, hold and build", or in his later descriptions of the strategic thinking behind the "surge". Again, I guess the calculation is that most of the public doesn't really care about that stuff or understand it.

8:41: At the end of the interview Mr McCain did re-emphasise that he supports the president's strategy.

8:40: Speaking of which, John McCain is on NBC saying the president's strategy is correct, but he is criticising the "arbitrary date of withdrawal". I'm not sure the president actually set such a date—it was somewhat vague—but that's the problem with trying to have it both ways, attempting to please everyone.

8:39: These calls for unity and bi-partisanship are whistling in the wind. But they can at least position him to characterise the coming attacks as anti-American.

8:37: The claims of human rights improvements he's making here are not going to get a free pass anymore on the left. People are too angry about Bagram and continuing black sites.

8:35: "We have forged a new beginning between America and the Muslim world"—I'm waiting to see how certain critics will twist this into something sinister.

8:33: Matthew Yglesias has been calling for a while for someone to do an analysis of war spending in Afghanistan as economic stimulus. A huge portion of what we spend "over there" actually comes back to American companies in salaries, new hardware production, etc—you can't really spend that much money "in" Afghanistan, pita bread just doesn't cost that much.

8:32: Being cost-conscious is going to play well in the current political environment in America. He's right to set a deadline and say the war can't be endless. "I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means or our interests." This is a very hard-headed point. It's time to stop pretending that wars don't cost anything and can be escalated endlessly. "We can't simply afford to ignore the cost of these wars." Damn straight.

8:31: These comments about the differences from Vietnam are all quite correct. The fact that the Taliban are so unpopular and so bad at ruling remains a huge opportunity, if anyone can seize it.

8:30: The "civilian surge" again. I've been reading on Leah Farrall's blog that the Taliban is now explicitly writing, in their magazines (!), that they will pursue a tactic of kidnapping civilian aid workers. We should get the American people ready for that.

8:28: Interesting that there was no mention of drone attacks, the one direct way America is combatting al Qaeda in Pakistan. Of course, well, see comment below.

8:27: Part three, Pakistan's role: yes, public opinion has turned against the Taliban in Pakistan. But public opinion has turned against America there too. "Mutual trust" between Pakistanis and America seems pretty far off.

8:25: Part two, Afghan government aid and reform: "The days of providing a blank check are over." Man, that's easy to say and hard to do. Support Taliban who "abandon violence"—does anyone in Afghanistan ever abandon violence? "Partner, not patron" is a good line, though.

8:23: The strategy. Part one: The military part. There's not a very clear sense of how the strategy is being shaped, in terms of a population security focus versus a continued focus on kinetic operations against the Taliban. Perhaps this makes sense—does anybody really care about this stuff outside wonky COIN circles?

8:20: "It is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak": we haven't heard anything about these. I wonder if we should look for more info in upcoming days to justify the deployment to this region.

8:17: The justification for the long decision-making period sounds odd to me. Stanley McChrystal wanted troops by next summer. We're now rushing to get them there by then, according to the president.

8:15: This is a new justification for the long decision-making period—that there were no options on the table involving additional troops before 2010 anyway. And here's the number: 30,000. After 18 months, a drawdown. So it does sound like a "surge" rather than an "escalation" to permanently higher levels, a distinction Spencer Ackerman made yesterday.

8:12: The goal appears "narrowly defined" at first—disrupting, dismantling and defeating al Qaeda—but the rub is in the "and its extremist allies". Hopefully this leaves room to decide that if Taliban elements stop being allied to AQ, they are no longer "extremist allies".

8:10: This is a very restrained way to characterise the mistake of waging war in Iraq, for those who are still invested in it, and giving credit for the withdrawal to the military itself is a smart move. And of course this is setting up the "goal" as a "successful withdrawal" some years down the road. Which is, hopefully, what we're aiming for in Afghanistan.

8:08: Is that Jason Bourne in the audience?

8:07: I've read accounts of US troops playing videos of September 11th to Afghan tribesmen to explain why they're there. A whole lot of Afghans weren't aware of what we were doing there.

8:05: Mr Obama is describing the lead-up to the Afghan war. He is doing this to justify the ongoing operation there, though it just as easily could be taken as a warning against running head first into commitments without a clear strategy or achievable goals. It is, after all, eight years later.

Totally agreed Doug. The speech seemed full of platitudes, but I'm not sure the occasion was set to make anything better.

When you just have bad options, and the differences between them are too technical (and confidential) to try to persuade the population at large, you end up saying stuff like tonight's: we did not ask for this war, this war is key for our security, to win we need this, our values are not simply words written into parchment, let's stand together.

A good speech for what sounds like it should be a good plan. Enough to move forward with, certainly.
I like blue's 8:37 point about the moral high ground. We're climbing back up but we fell a long way.

I'm still not entirely satisfied with how the goals are defined (not surprising since I'm not sure what I'd be happy with, it's above my pay grade). Dismantling al Qaeda sounds good but when you've got an organization that considers a tent to keep the ammo dry and a sat phone a military base the reality of this seems a lot harder (I'm exaggerating but these are guys that made caves into bases). I'm not sure that dismantling al Qaeda is achievable militarily, it seems to be more of a long term goal for the CIA and foreign intelligence and security agencies. I'm not seeing the military being able to get this done. These guys aren't going to show up on the battlefield for a winner takes all showdown. Not that I think anyone is suggesting that but how exactly do we destroy an organization like al Qaeda through military means? I'm just not seeing it.

This makes me unsure about the entire long run plan. Al Qaeda most likely isn't going to be gone in 18 months, no matter what we do. So what do we call it when we withdraw our troops with these guys still hiding out in caves in Afghanistan? I'm not sure that Obama is someone willing to be a President that lost a war. This speech hasn't changed my mind that we still haven't defined our goals there as something achievable through military action.

We are from a nation which had to fight for our own liberation and freedom.A huge number of well trained Pakistani army and equipment could not stand in the face of resistance from unarmed, less trained freedom fighters. We know that troop surge alone cant make this war winnable. What is needed most is try to win the heart and mind of Afgan people. No doubt Talibans are a very small section and they know the local lands and terrains better than the army from outside. Its really impossible to identify the talibans from the local people and quite naturally how do know where they are? I6t It would be useful to isolate the Talibans from common people. One thing may help is to invite Islamic countries through Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) to get on board a move to resolve the crisis and ask them to take part in the re-building activities in Afganistan. That will assure the locals that they have nothing to fear and suspect about their domination.

I heard about half and missed about half. My reaction to the half I heard is that among the things the President has lost during his long 10 months in office is the ability to make rhetoric sound meaningful. What I just heard could have been George W. Bush, albeit without the social promotions.

RE your 8:42 post, the items you listed aren't strategic, they're tactical. Obama's decisions on these items are important, but I'm not sure if using catchphrases to describe a few tactics should take a back seat to providing some strategic rationale to an 8 year old war. He, and we, should be more concerned with the "what" and the "why" versus the how. my two cents.

Great idea to live-blog this. Blue, that's some story at 8:07. We can launch an unmanned drone armed with laser-guided missiles and hit a tent but the basics can still be elusive. I look forward to reading the rest of what you all get up to.